79 Speed Improvement Tips for Magento

Magento is used by over 250,000 merchants making it one of the most popular platforms. With its ability to be customized and thousands of extensions, it helps to create a truly unique store. Yet Magento is also known for its resource hogging ways. To combat the slow speed of your store, here are some Magento speed improvement tips.

Magento speed improvement tips:

1. Update to the Latest Version

This will remove any known bugs and also update and/or add new features. For example Magento 2 has CSS pre-processor which speeds up page loads and makes it more search engine friendly.

2. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN is one of the best ways to combat slow loading sites. Servers around the world keep a copy of your site’s files for faster access in any location. Aspiration Hosting’s CDN has over 50 relays globally.

3. Merge JavaScript and CSS files

For a page to load correctly, the browser has to access numerous files including JavaScript and design CSS files. By merging them, you minimize the work the browser has to do.

4. Let’s talk about Cache

Server Caching

Varnish is the most well know and can speed your site greatly. We prefer LiteMage because it is faster and supports HTTPS. Either will make your site run a lot faster.

Add code snippets to the .htaccess file to allow certain files to be saved on your shopper’s computer. Use Gzip to compress the web pages on the server side and add Expire Headers which tells the browser whether to download a new version of the page from the server or use the one in the cache.

Magento Cache Configuration

Enable Magento’s in-built cache from the admin panel.

PHP Accelerator

PHP scripts can be cached in their compiled form using PHP Accelerators like Xcache.

MySQL

Enable MySQL’s query cache to improve speed performance.

5. Add-on Extensions

Think of extensions as clothes you wear. If you wear too many clothes, the weight will make your movements slow. Similarly a lot of extensions make it harder for your store to run smoothly. Delete unwanted extensions and don’t forget to update the extensions to fix any bugs that might be slowing page loads. Further, you can test an extensions impact by disabling it. Run a speed test on the site before and after disabling the extension.

About The Author

Alina is heavily into natural language expression in real life and technical one in blogging. She believes self-enhancement and spot-on goal setting contribute to any project's success. At out off-work time she is open to tattooing, sketching, and doing oils.

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Leave a Reply

All looks useful tips. You can also add one more tip to the list. Always try to use a Lightweight theme. Thanks!

Reply

1 year ago

Perla Abner

Thanks Syed, great suggestion. We’ve seen poorly written or ‘heavy’ themes kill performance. Our team helps troubleshoot performance for our clients, and the theme is often the culprit. Many of the tips in this PDF are related to the theme.